


No One’s Son

by AutumnHobbit



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst, C-PTSD, Child Abuse, Drug Use, Family, Found Family, Gen, Language, More-Than-Canon-Typical Language, domestic abuse, father-son feels, jason todd week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 01:28:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnHobbit/pseuds/AutumnHobbit
Summary: Day 7 (Aug15th):  One Quote & What Could’ve Been____AU. Jason’s parents didn’t die when he was a kid, but he’s still an orphan. And one way or another, life crosses his path with the Bats, for better or worse.





	No One’s Son

**Author's Note:**

> lol work is going to suck this week. so i’m posting this with barely an hour to spare before sleep.

_ “Jason, get your ass in here!”  _ rattled through the door before he’d even gotten the chance to turn the knob. Jason’s eyelids fell to a near-close in exasperation, but he drew a breath through his teeth and steeled himself and went inside, shutting the door behind him and locking the three padlocks and securing the chains. 

He didn’t give any reassurance that he was coming or give any defense. Silence was always the best and only option for that tone. Stony, empty silence. 

The inside of the apartment was dark except for the glow of the tv off to the right and the warmer but dimmer glow of the light up ahead in the kitchen. Jason shifted his fingers more securely around the plastic bag he carried dangled from one hand and slowly stepped forward, uncertain of what he’d see.

When he leaned into the kitchen, he saw his mom sprawled out on the floor, face down in a puddle of drool, twitching softly. His dad was standing against the counter, looking down his nose at her like she was something he’d stepped in. 

Tired and sore, with a weight like lead in his veins, Jason repressed his sharp exhale and set his bag carefully on the counter without so much as a thud. 

“Deal with that mess.” His dad ordered disgustedly, clearly indicating the woman as well as the saliva. He shoved off the counter and stalked back off towards the tv, leaving heavy footfalls behind him. He still wore those damn workman’s boots in the house as though he ever worked a day anymore.

Jason got down on his knees on the cracked linoleum and gently put his hands below his mom’s head to support it, shifting her against his shoulder to lift her up off the floor. 

The tv kept blaring in the other room. 

___

 

Jail had ripped his dad apart. Both physically and mentally.

It wasn’t like the guy was any sort of prize before, but at least he’d worked, even if it was for criminals. Coming home every two weeks with a bag full of cash might not have been cozy or consistent, but it was enough to throw at all the billers for awhile, long enough to stave them off for another few weeks. 

But Arkham was a hellhole, and everyone who’d ever been in knew it. Willis was lucky to come out alive. He’d nearly come out in a body bag. 

That incident had been his saving grace. A riot had broken out thanks to a couple of the higher-class criminal bosses, and in the melee he’d been shanked in the gut, twice. A trip to Gotham General, six hours of surgery, and a lawsuit by some up-and-coming social justice law firm had gotten him on probation. 

With a $60,000 hospital bill.

Catherine had been addicted since Jason was born, and probably longer. Jason hadn’t met his grandmother, because neither had his mom. It wasn’t hard to tell she was an addict’s child as much as he was. The only jobs she’d ever managed to hold were cashier at 24-hour restaurants or gas joints, and once mandatory drug-testing was passed, not even those. 

So there he was: fourteen years old with a crippled dad and an addict mom.

He’d done what he had to. 

___

He got a call from one of his garbage buddies at 2:37 in the morning. 

“Man, there’s a real fancy-ass car at the head of the alley! Fuckin insane, man!”

“So what,” Jason gritted, rubbing his eyes. He’d actually been comfortably asleep, for once.

“So what? I mean a  _ big _ money car! Enough to feed us both for a couple months! Come on, I can’t case it by myself.” 

“Fuck me,” Jason growled under his breath, throwing his covers back and yanking his shoes on, the phone jammed between his elbow and ear. “It better be a fuckin Montiago.”

The second he got to the front of the alley he knew he’d been screwed over deliberately.

Because parked in the head, barely visible due to the lack of streetlights, was the fucking Batmobile. 

Jason just stood there for a second, staring. 

The first thing he wondered was if the thing was occupied, and if so, if the Bat himself was inside watching him stand there with a tire iron, and was at any second going to jump out and start kung-fu pummeling him.

Well, if he was, he was taking a darned long time to do it. With that in mind, Jason took a step closer. Then another.

Silence.

The windows of the car were, of course, tinted as black as its owner’s soul. He couldn’t see any movement inside, but that didn’t mean anything.

Only one way to find out.

He raised his tire iron and very lightly thumped the glass on the driver’s side window.

Nothing.

Jason slowly lowered the tire iron, a grin spreading across his face. That asshole had been hoping to set him up to get his ass kicked by Batman and get hauled off to Arkham so he could keep all the loot for himself. Well, the joke was on him. The Bat had seriously just left his car sitting in an alleyway. 

But upon attempting to start casing it, he ran into a slight obstacle. Namely, that he couldn’t fucking break the window  _ or  _ the door despite smashing against them as hard as he physically could with a good old fashioned tire iron multiple times. When he ran out of breath and physically could not swing it any more, he doubled over, hands on his thighs, gasping. 

He’d have to try a different approach.

The tires were chrome-plated (on a veritable  _ tank _ , was he kidding), and the tread was clean and jagged. They looked practically brand-new.

And more importantly, they were held on with nothing but plain old bolts. 

He got two tires off within a half-hour and was almost finished with the third one when he heard a gasp and nearly launched the tire iron away in his haste to turn and look. Even in the dark alley, he could plainly make out the red-and-green uniform. 

_ Shit _ . Robin.

He snatched a tire under each arm from where he’d stacked them in reaching distance and bolted back down the alley at top speed. He heard short, quick footsteps behind him, but also panting.

He suppressed a smirk. Sounded like Robin had already been worn out before he’d gotten there. 

He got back to the door to the stairwell to his apartment and rammed into it full-speed...and bounced off and hit the pavement. His head spun for a few seconds before he scrambled back up, growling curses. His arm was throbbing from road rash, but he ran for a different door. Someone had taken out his brick he used to keep it propped open while he was out.

He spotted a small gap between the buildings and shoved the tires in before him, then quickly clambered in himself, folding up like a lawn chair to fit in the cramped space. He panted, trying to hold his breath, and waited. 

After a moment, the small footsteps pounded up again, followed closely by larger ones. Jason pressed back further.

“I’m—I’m telling you,” the young voice gasped. “He c-came...down this way. With two...of them.”

“I believe you, Rob,” the other voice said, and Jason started. It was deeper than the kid’s, but not anywhere near as deep as he’d heard the Bat’s was. Who the hell was this?

“What...do we do…?” Robin panted again, and the other voice wryly observed, “Well, we can’t exactly get home without those tires, so…”

There was a pause, and then he called, “Um….hello?” 

Jason stiffened. 

“Listen, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to be mean or anything, so I’ll skip the lecture about how you should probably know better than to steal other people’s car parts and just tell you...I’m not interested in hurting you. But I would really appreciate getting those tires back so I can, you know, go home and stuff. Plus, they’re kinda not mine, and let’s just say my uh, boss, is gonna be  _ super _ pissed with me if I lost those.”

“Tough luck,” Jason muttered under his breath, a split-second before a loud “Aha!” came from right outside, and he didn’t have the chance to yelp before two hands seized the front of his shirt and he was hauled out. “Found him!”

Before he knew what he was doing, Jason was wrenching out of the grasp and throwing a backhand. Robin fell with a thud. Jason froze, horrified.

“I’m sorry!” He burst out before he really thought about it, falling back against the brick wall of the alleyway. What kind of a piece of shit was he, anyway, just hitting a fucking  _ child _ so casually…

“That’s okay,” Robin said, amiably but a bit tightly, sitting up and getting his feet under him. “You were startled and all.”

“Seems like you’re kind of used to being manhandled,” the older voice said, and Jason whipped his head to the side. Nightwing stood with his arms casually folded over his chest. 

Oh, he was  _ really _ in trouble this time.

“I see you tried to break in,” Nightwing said brightly. “How’d it go?”

Jason said nothing.

Nightwing sighed, some of the tension loosening from his posture, giving way to exhaustion. “Robin, grab the tires. Let’s go.”

Robin went to obey, but Jason crouched in front of the gap and blocked him. Robin paused, expression deadpan, and gestured toward Nightwing, then towards Jason, as if to say,  _ deal with this. _

Nightwing’s eyebrow quirked. “Really? We’re still doing this?”

“I’d rather do this than go home without them. I can get fifty bucks apiece for those,” Jason bit back.

Robin’s masked eyes widened and he glanced back at Nightwing. Nightwing looked a strange mix between concerned and seconds from laughing. “Seriously? This is about money?  _ That’s _ all you want?”

Jason hovered there for a moment, questioning. “Yeah…?” He said cautiously.

“Well, pal, today is your lucky day. I have more than that on me.” Nightwing pulled his wallet out of his belt. Jason blinked, dumbfounded.  _ What the fuck was going on?  _

“Let’s see, twenty, hundred, fifty,” Nightwing mumbled under his breath, counting out bills. “There! Three hundred cash.” He proffered the bills with a flourish. When Jason didn’t move, he shook them again and said, “Seriously, take them. You look like you could use them.” 

Flushing, Jason stepped forward and attempted to keep from snatching them out of his hand while also keeping an eye out for a sudden ambush. None came. 

“Now, can we have the tires back?” Nightwing asked, and Jason dumbly stepped back out of the way of the alley. Robin promptly trotted forward and ducked in, coming back out and rolling a tire along in front of him. 

“Next time, feel free to just ask.” Nightwing gave him a friendly smile. The effect was somewhat lessened by the mask with the glowing white lenses where his eyes should be. “I try to carry a decent amount in case of emergencies.”

“A…” Jason spluttered. “A  _ decent amount? _ Holy hell. What  _ are _ you people.”

Nightwing shrugged. “Even I’m not sure at this point.” 

He glanced off in the direction Robin had run, a little worriedly, and Jason realized that it would take them a while to get the tires back on...and in the meantime, they’d be stuck in crime alley. As Bats.

Didn’t seem like a good combination.

“I’ll help him get them back on,” he said before he could stop himself, and hefted up his tire iron and made for the Batmobile again. He heard Nightwing falling into step behind him but ignored him. 

Robin glanced up when he heard him coming and blinked in surprise, but leaned back to allow Jason to position himself with the tire iron. He helped him roll the wheel into place and lock it on, and Jason set to screwing the bolts back on. He’d kept them neatly in his pocket. 

When they’d finished, Jason stepped back and grabbed his tire iron, holding it protectively to his chest. He wasn’t sure whether not-stealing but attempting to steal was a crime or not. He half expected to be thrown in jail, anyway. 

Robin waved at him as he got into the car. “See ya around, Michelin Man!” He called brightly, shutting the door and locking it with a click. 

Jason was aghast.  _ “Michelin Man?” _

Nightwing laughed. “He’s good at that sort of thing,” he said fondly. “Little dork.”

Little was right. Robin looked to be, what. Less than twelve? Jason wasn’t sure. He had to have been quite a few years younger than he himself was. Enough to be startling. 

“Anyway, take care of yourself, Michelin Man,” Nightwing winked with a smirk he had no right to, turning to go. He met Jason’s eyes—-or attempted to, before Jason dropped them—and added, in an oddly soft voice, “If you need money help again...or any help...let me know, okay?”

Jason didn’t answer. He stared at the pavement. His skin felt buzzy and too tight. 

He didn’t look up when the door slammed. He didn’t look up when the car roared off into the night. He didn’t look up when he trudged back the way he had come, across the same old stained concrete. 

It was only when he’d shut the door to the stairwell behind him and made sure he was alone that he leaned back against the door and stared up at the hovering blackness before the ceiling and gulped in air like he’d never tasted it before. He reached down and pulled the wad of bills from his pocket where he’d stashed it, unfolding them and just barely managing to make out the large, blocky numbers in the dim, flickering light from the upper landing. His fingers felt odd and itchy as he ran them across the smooth surface of the crisp paper.

He shoved them back in and climbed the stairs, slowly. 

Setting foot in the apartment turned out to be a mistake when he turned from the door and his dad was standing right there with his nose up in his face. “I thought I told you to  _ clean that mess up!” _ He roared, and Jason didn’t even flinch, but he was confused: what mess..? Then he glanced over and saw that his mom had somehow wandered back into the living room and had thrown up this time. He winced, but before he could even say anything Dad was ranting again. “Can’t rely on you for fucking  _ anything _ , can I? All I asked was to clean that shit up and you can’t even manage  _ that _ . Not surprising with her for a mother, though. My dad always said I settled. If I’d have dumped her, I’d never have to put up with shit like you. Where’s the fucking money? Rent’s due in a week and if we get turned out you  _ will _ regret it.”

“I have—“ Jason tried to say, but before he could get through the first syllable he was being shoved back against the door, and there was a finger pointing in his face alongside all the words being hurled into it. Pressing his head back and turning as far as he could to avoid the majority of it, he fumbled his hand for his pocket, but his dad grabbed his wrist in an iron grasp and yanked it out hard enough that Jason gasped.

Dad fell silent. He nearly tore the bills from Jason’s hand—Jason bit his tongue on a desperate,  _ Don’t tear them! _ —-and spread them out, counting with a practiced precision before gently, neatly stacking them back together. He seized a fistful of Jason’s shirt and rammed him back again, leaning in. “The hell did you get this, boy.”

Jason said nothing, just stared. His dad was so close he could see the hairs in his nose.

“He gets plenty for us however he can,” an unsteady voice said, and both of them glanced at Mom in the doorway, listing to one side a bit and holding onto the doorframe. Her hair was askew and her eyes were glazed. “Leave him be.”

Dad scoffed, and threw Jason back into the door, releasing him. He shoved the bills into his own back pocket. “I should beat your bitch ass more often than I do his. You deserve it more. Dumbass. You.” He pointed at Jason again. Jason froze. “I don’t give half a damn where you got it from or how. You get more. Get me?”

Jason didn’t nod. He didn’t move. 

“Pussy,” Dad mumbled as he turned back. Jason heard the springs on the couch squeak when he threw himself down in front of the tv again.

Mom let go of the doorframe and stepped closer. She reached a hand out and laid it on his hair, tangling a fingertip in the curls around his eyes and pushing them back. “You alright, baby?” She asked, in a wavering, soft tone. 

“I’m fine, Mom.” He replied dully, his voice quiet and empty. 

___

 

A week later, Dad smashed three of Jason’s salvaged plates in a rage over the Knights losing. They always lost.

In revenge, Jason decided to hit up a food truck before going home.

It was 1:00 in the morning when he ambled up to the old truck, covered in construction dust from sitting beneath a project bridge all day. Hazy smog hung just above the street lamps. There were a few night shift workers huddled around the truck, eating leaned up against the side or sitting on the curbs nearby.

He stepped up to the window with his hands stuffed in his hoodie pockets and ordered a big fried chalupa from the sleepy attendant. He stepped back afterwards and glanced around uncomfortably at the other customers, keeping his hand over the cash in his pocket.

“Hi, Michelin Man.” Someone said behind him, and Jason blanched. Sure enough, when he looked behind him, Robin and Nightwing were coming up towards the truck. Robin waved. 

Jason backed up. “What are you doing here? I gave you your tires back!”  _ If they find out I was stealing again—- _

“We know. Thanks, by the way.” Nightwing said with a grin. “Purely coincidence to run into you, though. We’re just here for a midnight snack.”

The silent cashier shoved a couple foil-wrapped burritos over the counter and Nightwing and Robin took them with a matching pair of grateful thank yous. Jason blinked, dumbfounded. “You didn’t even pay!” He said, appalled.

“He won’t let us,” Nightwing replied, nodding back at the elderly man doing the cooking. “Believe me, I’ve tried.” 

“Yeah. He’s like, super nice.” Robin said, already two bites into his.

Jason grumbled under his breath, pulling his hoodie tighter around himself.

“You alright there, tire thief?” Nightwing asked. He glanced towards the truck. “You getting something?”

“Yeah.” Jason said defensively. Conveniently, that was the moment the cashier pushed his chalupa across the counter. Validated, Jason squared his shoulders and marched up to take his food. He went past Nightwing and Robin and sat down decisively on the curb, unwrapping his food.

Someone sat down on either side of him. He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you have someplace else to be?”

“Not really,” Nightwing said through a mouthful of food. “Been a slow evening.”

“Wing, if we’re bugging him, maybe we should—“ Robin said hesitantly, but Nightwing shook his head dismissively and said, “Oh, don’t fret, Robin. If he wanted us to scram, he’d tell us so.” Nightwing met Jason’s eyes. “Right?”

“...Right.” Jason said hesitantly, not sure what Nightwing was playing at.

Nightwing gave him a grateful smile and dropped his gaze back to his food. “R, why don’t you tell him about your English homework fiasco today?”

“...Okay,” Robin said, in a tone Jason almost would have called shy. “So uh, I have to take a course in classics from this...uh…”

“Jerk.” Nightwing supplied helpfully, and Robin flushed. “I...I guess so, but you’re not supposed to call teachers jerks. Anyway, so for a couple weeks we’ve been reading some stuff about politics—“ Robin wrinkled his nose in distaste. “—and my teacher says that Robin Hood will illustrate for us the point that stealing from the rich to give to the poor is right, which is why we should raise taxes.”

“That’s bullshit,” Jason declared vehemently, startling himself. “That’s not what happened in the damn book.”

“That’s exactly what I said!” Robin exclaimed. “In the book all the rich people Robin stole from were—“

“All tax collectors and people who had the opportunity to take tax money and did it,” Jason finished. “Hell, Robin was rich to start off with. So was Maid Marian.” 

Nightwing snickered. Jason glared at him. “What?”

“” _ Maid _ Marian.”” Nightwing giggled. 

“It’s her name!” Jason and Robin said at once, and mutually rolled their eyes at Nightwing. 

“I said that wasn’t what happened in the book, and…”

“And he got penalized.” Nightwing said disgustedly. 

“What a load of shit.” Jason muttered. “Glad I’m not in school anymore.”

At that, Nightwing arched an eyebrow. “You’re not?” He scrutinized Jason’s features curiously. “You don’t look old enough. You’re not as old as I am, definitely.”

“I’m sixteen,” Jason bit out defensively. It wasn’t quite a lie. He would be. In five months.

Nightwing smirked. “And I’m twenty-five.”

Jason blinked.

“He’s actually nineteen,” Robin whispered conspiratorially, and Nightwing smacked his arm playfully. “No personal info, R.” 

“Why are we talking if we can’t talk?” Robin said, only a hint sour, and Jason was wondering the same thing. Why  _ were _ they talking to him?

And moreover, why was he talking to  _ them _ ? About...about  _ books _ and shit?

“I’ve gotta go,” he said out of nowhere, clenching his foil wrapper into a ball in one fist. He got up and threw it away in a nearby trash can, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and stalked off. “Bye.”

At first nothing came from behind him, just startled silence, and Jason resolutely went on and pushed down the ridiculous disappointment stirring in his stomach. Then Robin’s voice piped up, “Bye!” and Nightwing’s, “Have a good evening—I mean morning!”

Jason waved a hand dismissively behind him, but somehow it was easier to go on after that. 

It took him twenty minutes of walking to get back to his alley, during which he passed five prostitutes (whom he actually knew and liked seeing because they always gave him a stick of gum or something if they had it), edged his way around two muggings, and hoped someone called the cops for some girl who was screaming over her overdosed boyfriend. By the time he got back into the stairwell of his apartment, he was ready to drop into his bed and sleep.

He didn’t make it to the door before his dad stepped out of nowhere, appearing in the blackness like a ghost, and threw him against the wall in the hallway. “Where the fuck’s the money.” He demanded. “Give it, boy.”

Jason grabbed for what he had and yanked it out and held it in front of his dad’s nose before he could grab his wrist again. Dad snatched it out of his hand and counted it, then recounted it. He stared at the pile of bills for a moment, after he finished. 

Then he backhanded Jason and grabbed him by his shirt collar while he was crumpled against the wall, hauling him up and rearing back before punching him in the eye. Hard. Jason yelped involuntarily from the sharp pain that exploded in his eye before he was falling back against the wall hard enough to see stars. 

“Come back to me with less than $300 again and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born,” his dad threatened. He crossed the hall into the apartment and slammed the door. Jason heard the locks click and the chain rattle. 

He lay there against the wall, trying to breathe again after that pounding. He tried to push himself up but the pain in his head made him sink back against the wall with a moan. He had nothing left. There was no point in getting up. Who knew when Dad would decide to unlock it, or when Mom would wake up and be coherent enough to think to do it.

Jason slumped back against the wall and let his head slide down to the side. He drifted off, held securely in the embrace of throbbing pain. 

___

 

Three nights later he was digging through the rejects pile at the junkyard at midnight when Nightwing and Robin leapt across a rooftop nearby. He ducked his head down and kept throwing metal into a bucket behind him. He really wasn’t in the mood for a friendly chat. 

A cat screeched an alley or so away. Jason ignored it. He examined a piece of a bike wheel. Minimal rust he could probably scrub off. He threw it into the bucket with a plink. 

He heard a scuffle outside the fence. He ignored it. He picked up a piston. Corroded to heck. He threw it back in the pile.

Gunshots. From down the alley outside the fence. He glanced over, wondering if he was going to have to run inside and hide.

The shots tapered off, but he could hear yelling. He turned back to his pile.

Footsteps. Running closer. Frantic. Coming in his direction.

Jason picked up an old jack. It was missing a wheel and the handle. Seemed in decent shape, though. He tossed it in his bucket.

The fence rattled. Jason’s head whipped to the side. Nightwing was scrambling over the fence. As soon as he was a third of the way down, he leapt off, landing with a practiced roll and coming back onto his feet almost instantly. He ran flat-out for a nearby pile of wood and dove into a gap between a few stacks, crawling back until he disappeared from sight.

Jason watched him go. Then he turned back to his pile. 

Within a minute or so, Jason could hear a large group of people coming down the alley. Loud men’s voices, shouting angrily and threatening things that would make your skin crawl. Jason rolled his eyes and kept digging.

He heard the group milling about at the fence. Someone smacked the metal wiring. “Hey, asshole.”

Jason turned his head with an unimpressed expression.

The guy who’d hit the fence raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Hey, you’re Willis’ brat, aincha?”

“No shit,” Jason muttered, throwing a gear in his bucket with a bit more force than necessary. He recognized the grunt at the fence, too; he’d been in the same gang as his dad. They worked for a lot of the same crooks.

“You didn’t see any tail-between-his-legs vigilante shit running around here in the last few minutes, didja?” The guy asked, glancing around, like he expected Nightwing to just be sitting in plain view. “Pretty little bitch needs a whooping, and maybe a little more than that if ya ask me.” Some loud sniggers echoed the statement.

Jason threw an old wrench in his bucket. “Nah.” He said flatly. 

“You sure?”

“I look like I have time to worry about any shitbags?” Jason half-snarled, shoving a screwdriver down into the over-full bucket. 

The guy scoffed. “You  _ are _ your dad’s kid. Keep out of trouble, dipshit.” With a two-fingered salute, the guy pushed off the fence and went on towards 2nd street. His little posse quickly followed suit, taking their noise with them. 

Jason kept adding to his bucket. 

After a few minutes, Nightwing slowly climbed out of the pile of wood, glancing around the whole time. Jason ignored him and kept working.

Nightwing came over towards him. Of course. “Thanks for that,” he said quietly.

“Sure.” Jason replied dully, throwing something else into his pile.

“...You okay?” Nightwing asked, hesitantly concerned.

“Sure.” Jason deadpanned in reply. He’d filled his bucket beyond its limit. He stood up and ducked down to pick it up by its handle. He tugged his hood tighter over his face. “Bye.”

Nightwing looked pensive, but he stepped back to let him pass. Jason stumped by as quickly as he could, but he didn’t even make it all the way past him before the handle of the bucket broke and he staggered forward from the sudden shift of weight. It pulled him down with it and his shoulder hit the pavement hard. His hood fell off. 

Nightwing was beside him in an instant. “You okay?” He said worriedly, helping pull him up off the pavement. Once he caught sight of Jason’s eye, though, he paled. “What  _ happened _ ?” He asked, horrified. 

“My dad happened.” Jason said dully. He bent and started to gather up his stuff, which was strewn across the asphalt. Nightwing belatedly joined him, scooping up the little broken bits of metal and dumping them back into the battered bucket. 

“Is that….is that normal?” Nightwing questioned, pained, and Jason shrugged. “He’s a useless ass. It’s not a big deal.” 

The older boy didn’t reply to that, but the spot between his eyebrows was pinched in a worried way. Jason wasn’t sure why it irked him so much. “I’ve gotta go home,” he said gruffly, hefting his bucket up again.

“Wait,” Nightwing said, and reached for his belt again.

“You don’t have to—“ Jason started to protest; half-heartedly because he needed the money, but Nightwing didn’t listen and pulled another stack of bills from his wallet. “$400 this time. Better safe than sorry, right?” He said, handing them to Jason. Jason did his best not to rip them out of his hand, firmly close his palm around them instead. 

“Thanks,” he said shortly, uncomfortable, and turned to leave.

“Hey,” Nightwing said, and Jason, rolling his eyes to himself, turned. “Do you…” Nightwing looked and sounded distinctly uncomfortable. “Do you need help? To get away from your dad?”

Jason froze.

He had never thought about leaving. Not seriously, anyway. Not since he was three or four and tried to cope with stupid imaginary scenarios where he told his dad how much he hated him, told him how much better his mom deserved, took his mom by the hand and marched off with all his belongings stuffed in his pockets, ran far away from the disgusting apartment and never had to see it again. Where he had a clean room to sleep in and didn’t have to hear gunshots all night. Where he’d never have to see his dad again.

It sounded so good.

It also sounded impossible. 

“No,” he gritted, and turned resolutely. He heard Nightwing calling after him a few times, but he kept going. His heart was thudding in his chest as he went. He couldn’t quite look at anyone he passed on the streets. What if his dad found out?

Halfway up the stairwell, he fumbled to yank the money out of his pocket. He had it ready when he mounted the last step onto their floor.

No one was there. He looked around very carefully. Dad wasn’t hovering in the dark, waiting for him. 

Slowly, Jason made his way to his door, still watching around him. He tried the knob.

Locked. 

He made his way back down the stairs. Back down the alley and around to the front of the building. There was a fire escape outside his room and he always left his window just a crack open.

When he climbed in, the apartment was quiet as a tomb. He shut the window soundlessly and crept out into the hallway. Mom was out on the couch, breathing heavy through her mouth. Dad was facedown on the living room floor, a beer spilled next to his hand, shards of glass scattered around. Blood was staining the carpet, from cuts in his hand and face.

Jason put $300 of the cash on the coffee table and hurried back to his room. 

The two fifties he stuffed under his mattress, far enough they couldn’t be seen but close enough he could reach them at a moment’s notice. He pulled his threadbare blanket over himself as tight as he could, curling up, but he couldn’t shut his brain off enough to sleep.

_ Do you need help? To get away from your dad? _

___

He was picking trash right outside of his alley in the afternoon the end of that week. He’d decided to stick close to home because Mom had thrown up on one of Dad’s shirts and he’d beaten her. Not as badly as he ever had, but bad enough. Jason wanted to be nearby in case Dad did anything else, or in case Mom needed him.

As he was stuffing crumpled cans into a bag, a car pulled up against the curb. A nice car. Jason paused and watched as a tall, dark-haired man in a simple polo and jeans climbed out, locking the door and adjusting his leather jacket. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked from the curb up onto the sidewalk. He paused across the street from the movie theatre, staring at it with an odd, distant expression on his face.

Jason was eyeing the pockets of that leather jacket, wondering if there was a wallet full of hundreds in either of them. His fingers twitched around the can he was holding.

He threw the mangled thing into the bag and kept going.

When he looked up at the man again, he’d turned and was staring directly at Jason. Jason tried not to react, but he could feel every muscle in his body tensing up.

“Thinking about mugging me?” The man asked easily.

Jason stared. Eventually he shook his head, quickly and emphatically.

“Good.” The man said, satisfied. He strode towards Jason slowly. “Wouldn’t have gone well for you, even if it weren’t wrong.”

Jason stared. The man drew to a stop in front of him. He was tall—very tall—and was looking down at Jason with a confusing expression.

“The fuck are you,” Jason managed to choke out through a dry throat.

The man chuckled. “We’ll say I’m a mutual friend. Of some people who...may or may not wear brightly-colored costumes?”

Jason blinked. “You know Nightwing and Robin?”

The man nodded quietly, glancing around. “We’ll say I’m a benefactor of theirs. I try to help them out when I can. I believe in what they’re doing, and to be honest with you I’m amazed that those boys can do it, let alone as well as they can.” He grinned ruefully. “I certainly couldn’t when I was their age.”

“What...what does that have to do with me?” Jason asked, his head spinning. 

“Ah.” The man dropped his voice. “As I said, I help them whenever I can. Which means sometimes they come to me with...concerns that they can’t properly handle in their roles.”

Jason bristled. “I’m no  _ concern _ of theirs. I did my part and returned their shit. That was all.”

The man considered him curiously. “I know. They told me you did. They seem to think pretty highly of you. Robin, especially.”

Jason blinked, dumbfounded.  _ Liked _ him? Why would they  _ like _ him?

“They’re worried. That’s why they sent me. Nightwing was worried for your safety, and honestly, looking at you...I see why.” The stranger surveyed his scarred face with a pained expression. “He wanted me to...extend an offer to you.”

“What sort of offer?” Jason forced out.

“Ah.” The man shrugged his shoulders a little, hands still in his pockets. The effect made him look a little awkward and uncomfortable. “You see, I’ve a bit of...money. The car probably told you that already, but I try to use it well. I didn’t earn it, so I try to do right by my parents’ example. I run...businesses and charities. One of the charities I’ve gotten into recently is shelters, especially for battered or abandoned children. I’ve even taken a few into my home myself.”

Jason swallowed, and the man continued, half-rambling. “Of course it’s not just for children; I have halfway houses that include parents or abused spouses, too. Still working out the kinks, but I want the system to be the best it can. So.” He glanced at Jason again. Jason noticed his eyes were grey—cool, steel grey, but currently soft, even gentle. “I...I don’t know what your situation is, but if you have a parent you’re concerned about, or a sibling, or anyone...we could take all of you. Get you food and shelter while you get back on your feet, bring a case against the abuser if you want it, or just get away.”

Jason tried his best not to snap. He had no idea how this fucker would react if he did.

The man leaned down a bit. “I...I don’t know your name.”

Jason licked his lips. “Jason. Jason Todd.” he said, before he could stop himself, cursing interiorly the whole time.

The man smiled. The smile almost became a smirk the instant before he said,  “Wayne. Bruce Wayne.”

Jason blinked. Bruce Wayne? Bruce  _ fucking _ Wayne? The  _ billionaire _ ? 

What the actual hell was going on?

“I’m sorry if I’m pushing, Jason.” Mr. Wayne straightened. “I don’t mean to be at all. It’s completely your choice if you want to try to leave, and I’m sure there are a lot of things to consider.” 

“Mom.” Jason said, looking down. For whatever reason he couldn’t meet Mr. Wayne’s eyes. “My mom. I—I’ve got a mom.”

Bruce’s face, if possible, softened even more. “Is it your dad, then?” He asked quietly. “Who’s hitting you?”

Jason looked away sharply. He knew that would give it away regardless. His face burned. 

“I’m sorry.” Bruce said, in that soft tone again, and Jason growled. “Like you’d fucking know what it’s like.” 

Silence. “You’re right. I don’t. I’m very grateful for that.” Jason glanced up. Mr. Wayne was glancing back at the theatre again, his tone sad. “My parents were very kind to me. I’ll always remember them as one of the best parts of my life.”

Jason connected the dots. Everyone knew the Wayne history. The old folks had been killed at the theatre across the street when Bruce was just a kid. “Sorry.” Jason said gruffly, dropping his head back to his bag of trash. He shoved another can in with a vengeance. 

“It’s alright, Jason.” Bruce said, with a pained smile. 

“....A halfway house, huh?” Jason muttered a long minute later. He glanced up at Bruce calculatingly. “I don’t have to sleep with you or any other rich fucks to stay there, do I?” 

Bruce turned a peculiar shade of green almost instantaneously. “No.” He forced out, as if the word disgusted him. “And I hope if anyone ever tried to make you do that, you’d use that tire iron of yours to your advantage.”

Jason scoffed quietly, then shoved another can in his bag. “I’ve got to go home,” he said, tying his bag off. He  _ did _ want out of this conversation, but it was also eating at him suddenly that he wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, and who knew what his dad was doing to his mom by now.

“Wait.” Bruce said behind him, and Jason, despite himself, stopped. He turned around to see Bruce scribbling something on a small piece of paper. He held it out to Jason, and Jason, approaching as if he was about to be attacked, took it.

“If...if you decide you want to try to go, call me.” Bruce said. “I’ll come pick you up myself if I have to.” 

Jason barely spared the little piece of cardstock a glance, shoving it deep down in his pocket. “Sure,” he said hurriedly, hoisting up his bag and almost running back into the alley. He didn’t look back. 

___

 

Dad wasn’t waiting when Jason came up onto their landing. That didn’t ease his nerves any as he slipped in the door, which was unlocked.

The tv was off. The kitchen light was on.

Cautiously, Jason crept forward. He took care to tread lightly.

Mom was sitting at the counter. She looked up at him when he came in. She smiled.

“Baby!” She said happily. She got up and crossed the room, wrapped him in a hug. Her hand slipped into his hair and stroked it. “Did you have a good day, baby?”

“...Yeah, Mom,” he said, a bit hoarse. She was like this every once in a while. Usually when Dad was gone. It never lasted, but oh how he  _ wished _ it would. He tangled a faintly shaking hand in her shirt and held on.

She bent and pressed a kiss to his forehead, brushing his bangs back from his eyes. “Good.” She saw the bag he was carrying, and looked back at his eyes with a warm expression. “You do such a good job taking care of things for us, baby.” She pulled him close again. “What would I do without my sweet boy?”

Jason tried to stifle his smile. “I’ll go put them in the bin, Momma.” 

“Alright, sweetie.” His mom let go a little reluctantly. “When you get done, why don’t you come help me peel some onions. The lady down the hall brought by a bag of potatoes. We’ll fix a real supper tonight. Maybe Dad will be in a better mood when he comes home from visiting.”

“Uh huh,” Jason said distractedly, hurrying to dump his loot in the bin. Momma hadn’t fixed any food in so long, he couldn’t remember the last time. He was eager to help for as long as this lasted. 

When he trotted back into the kitchen, Momma had pulled out a rarely-used pot from the cabinets, made a face at the inside of it, and gone to rinse it in the dirty water from the sink. Jason dug through a drawer full of old zippo lighters to retrieve a vegetable peeler. He dragged the heavy paper bag of potatoes from the middle of the counter to the side so he could dump the peels in the trash. 

He was halfway through the bag and Momma kissed his hair as she passed him to pull the half-empty jug of milk from the fridge. She took the potatoes he finished and tossed them in boiling water with salt. In another pan she started mixing flour and the milk. Soon enough the room smelled warm, and when she added a bit of cheese, Jason’s stomach growled. 

She had to clean a couple of coffee mugs and spoons from the half-rotted pile of dishes before they could eat, but when she did the two of them stood across from each other and ate. Momma teased him when he got some smeared on his face and wiped it off with a paper towel. 

The door slammed. Both of them froze.

Dad stumped by the kitchen, seeming not to notice them for an instant. Then he doubled back and stood there in the doorframe. “The fuck is this.”

Jason softly pushed his mug behind a few of the tins on the counter. Momma pushed off the stove nervously and said, “The neighbor dropped off some food, so I figured, before it got wasted—“

Dad sniffed. “Seems you did a good enough job wasting it already,” he huffed, stepping into the kitchen. Jason and Momma both backed out of his way as he leaned over the pot. 

“You clean any more dishes or not?” Dad looked up at Mom sharply, and she fumbled to pull a dish from the cupboard and almost dropped it. He grabbed it roughly out of her hand and grabbed the ladle to spoon himself out some. Jason saw his hands twitching.

His hand shook and he spilled some of it onto his other hand and sleeve. Almost as quickly as he did, Mom had to duck beneath the mug as it flew into the side of the fridge and shattered into dozens of pieces. The fork bounced off the counter with a clang and Dad ripped the stove out from the wall and threw it onto the floor. The pot tipped over and spilled all the contents out as it rolled until it finally came to a stop on its side.

Dad stood there, chest heaving, fists clenched. Jason and Mom stood there, staring.

Dad slouched. He glanced around. “Clean that shit up,” he gritted out. His hand moved, and Jason tensed. He waved it dismissively behind him as he stalked out of the room. 

___

 

Jason was lying in his bed that evening, staring at the wall. He hadn’t bothered to pull the covers over himself. 

His door squeaked open. He glanced over his shoulder quickly, but relaxed and turned back when he realized it was just Mom. His heart sank as he studied the torn wallpaper. He’d seen her swaying, unsteady gait. 

She sat heavily on the side of his bed. A gentle, tremoring hand laid on his shoulder. “I’m sorry ‘bout that, baby,” she slurred.

“It’s alright, Mom.” He said tiredly, not looking at her.

“You know your dad. He just gets over...overwhelmed sometimes. It h—happens to everyone.”

“I know.” Jason clenched his fist out of her sight.

Mom’s hand traveled from his shoulder to his hair, rubbing it softly between her fingers. “I’ll talk to him. He’ll say sorry. He doesn’t mean to hurt us.” 

“Sure, Mom.” Jason said. The words tasted sour.

Mom leaned close and kissed his hair. Jason could smell the beer on her breath. “Night, baby. Love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.” Jason said. He mostly kept his voice from breaking. He didn’t think Mom could hear it either way. With a sigh, she stood with some difficulty, and slowly made her way out of his room, shutting the door gently behind her. Jason could hear her footsteps moving around outside his room. He heard her lie down on the couch. Then the apartment was quiet. 

He lay there in the dark and stared at the wall. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the little card. He leaned over towards the window. In the light from the streetlamp, he read the handwritten number scrawled across the blank card. Enough times that the number was burned into his memory.

But he decided then and there that he couldn’t leave his mom. She loved him. She was the only person he’d ever really loved. 

___

 

“Evening, Jason.” 

Jason started and sat up from where he’d been slouched against a pipe on the roof of his apartment building, shoving his cigarette into a puddle by force of habit before his eyes landed on Nightwing and Robin, standing together a couple steps from the edge of the roof. 

“Oh, it’s  _ you _ .” Jason rolled his eyes and leaned back against the pipe again. His fingers squeezed the extinguished cigarette again in disappointment. He flicked it out of his fingers and off the edge of the roof.

Nightwing and Robin hesitantly came over and sat down across from him, their backs to the wall around the roof. “Did you talk to B?” Robin asked hopefully.

Jason snorted. “So  _ that’s _ what you call him?” 

Nightwing shrugged ruefully. “It’s convenient.” He met Jason’s gaze. “Seriously, though. Did you?”

“Yeah, I talked. Or he talked, and I sat and didn’t believe a word he said,” Jason said wearily. 

“B wouldn’t lie. He’s a good person,” Robin said earnestly, and Jason laughed. It turned into a cough halfway through. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t buy that, Robin.”

Nightwing and Robin exchanged glances. Jason gritted his teeth, irritated. “Look. I’m grateful in a way for you guys being irritating, but I’m fine. I don’t need your help, and if I did, I would ask for it.” 

Nightwing narrowed his eyes at Jason. Jason drew back just slightly, disturbed. “But you would ask?” Nightwing pressed. “If you  _ really _ needed it?”

Jason bit his lip. Nightwing and Robin just sat there, waiting, watching him.

“Alright! If I  _ really _ needed it, I’d call the dumb number and get the rich guy to pick me and my mom up,” Jason said, holding his hands up in surrender. “But I  _ don’t _ need it. At least, not now.” 

“...Alright, then.” Nightwing’s posture relaxed a little bit, though Jason could still see some lingering concern there. Geesh, the guy was a fucking open book. He should really be more careful, before a vigilante and all. 

“Anyway, how’s that shitty English teacher treating you lately?” Jason asked Robin, eager to change the subject.

“Easier than the Falcones’ underlings,” Robin snarked. 

“Yeah, they’ve been working this neighborhood over lately.” Nightwing agreed, wrinkling his nose. 

“They suck. My dad worked for them once.” Jason rolled his eyes and pulled another cigarette from the box in his jacket, cupping it in his hands to light it.

“Really?” Nightwing said, surprised. Jason nodded, rolling his eyes as he took a puff and exhaled a stream of smoke. 

“Are you old enough to do that?” Robin asked suspiciously, and Jason snickered. “You’re adorable sometimes, Robin.” 

___

 

Jason was woken up from a deep sleep by the rat-a-tat of close gunfire in the middle of the night. 

He scrambled up to his knees on his sagging mattress and shoved a couple pieces of the blind back to look out.

He could see the muzzle flashes and occasional sparks as the bullets bounced off of fire escapes and cars. There were at least a dozen men on the street, if not more. Fuck, it was the guy from a few weeks back. The one his dad had worked with. His gang was shooting like a bunch of idiots, swinging their guns every direction and firing haphazardly at anything that moved.

Something must have really scared them to rattle them this badly. Jason settled against the window, watching nervously. 

A dark shadow drifted across the glow of a street lamp, so fast that Jason barely saw it. More bullets followed it, anyway.

Batman, Jason realized. Which meant Nightwing and Robin were likely down there, too. He swallowed hard and watched. 

The men were swarming around each other, huddled on Jason’s side of the alley. They were firing across the street, at seemingly nothing, but Jason suspected the Bats were there somewhere. There was a homeless guy huddled under his cardboard stack, hiding from the gunfire next to a dumpster a little ways from the door to the stairwell.

Jason kept watching with baited breath. The shooting didn’t stop. It seemed to go on and on. 

Something smashed outside of his room. He tensed and glanced back. Casting glances behind him at the shootout, he left the window and edged towards the hallway. 

He leaned his head out just the slightest bit; at just the wrong time. His dad was stalking down the hallway and saw him. He came faster.

“Where the fuck is your mother?” He grumbled, and Jason’s blood ran cold. He pivoted and ran for his window.

Frantically shoving the shades back, he scanned the street below. He spotted her, across the street, huddled behind a car, plastic bags full of goodness knew what in tow. She was glancing around in bewilderment. He knew she was high beyond belief. Probably wasn’t sure whether the noises were really happening or not.

Without stopping for a second, Jason rammed through his door and pushed past his dad, running flat out for the stairwell. He nearly fell off the landing as he leapt off the top step, taking them two at a time. His heart pounded frantically in his chest and neck.  _ Mom. Mom. _

He threw the door open hard enough that it slammed into the wall and ducked his head as he ran into the street. His mom was huddled forty feet away. He ran for her. His tire iron was lying on the sidewalk just a few feet from the door. He grabbed it as he went. 

His mom glanced up at him when he slid to a stop beside her, obviously disoriented. Her eyes weren’t quite lining up right. Jason grasped her upper arm and pulled her up. “Mom. You have to run, now. You see the stairwell?”

She blinked heavily. “My bags…” she said shakily.

“I’ll get ‘em. You see the stairwell?”

“Yes—“ the word twisted funny near the end. 

“Go. Run. I’ll be right behind you.” Jason said, giving her a bit of a push in the right direction. She started slowly at first, but picked up speed as she went. Jason turned back and snatched up the bags, not stopping to look at what was in them, and made to follow. 

When he’d almost made it to the sidewalk, he wound up losing hold of the bags because he had to leap out of the way of the Batmobile, which came speeding in and rammed a guy with a machine gun who’d been standing on the curb. Jason pushed himself back up on scraped hands, and saw Batman jumping down on some guy. It was kind of terrifying to see something that big hit a human being and knock them flat to the concrete. The head guy, the one who knew his dad, saw it happen and raised his own gun. Batman was distracted with the guy he was subduing. 

Jason grabbed his tire iron off the sidewalk and ran. 

He reached the guy just as he was about to pull the trigger. “Batman, down!” Jason yelled, swinging the tire iron at the same second.

He broke the guy’s hand. Batman heard him and dropped rapidly, but Jason wasn’t sure if it had been fast enough. The report from the shot made his ears ring. 

Maybe that was why he didn’t hear it when another shot rang out. But he felt it.

He lurched forward a bit but got his feet under him. He glanced around, confused. He still couldn’t quite hear, but the guy who’d worked with his dad was staring at him like he was a ghost, and then was scrambling away on his shattered hand, pulling himself up to his feet and running away all hunched over and yelling noiselessly. 

Jason looked around. He couldn’t see Batman or Robin or Nightwing anymore. There were still bullets plinking off of street lamps and fire escapes, but not as many. He looked down and saw his mom’s bags scattered around, the pill bottle contents spilled in a bunch of places. He tried to reach down to gather some of them up, but somehow fell over.

Dazed, he looked up. The Batmobile was above him. He studied the handful of pills he’d managed to grab. They were stained red and his palm was sticky around them when he opened it. His feet felt numb and heavy as he dragged them behind him. 

He tried to crawl towards the curb to pull himself back to his feet, but when he reached his arm forward something in his stomach pulled in a funny, unpleasant way, and when he reached down to touch it his hand came back soaked in bright red. He turned his hand back and forth in the dim light, trying to make sense of it.

Suddenly tired, he slouched back, and his shoulder hit the tire of the Batmobile. His hand wound up on top of the spot in his side, and he left it there. It seemed like that might be important somehow. It was throbbing under his fingertips, felt like it was pulsing. His vision seemed to be pulsing with it, drawing inwards with fuzzy, greyish corners. 

Someone was calling his name, he thought, from very far away. He blinked his eyes open and saw Robin really close to his face, right above it. He wasn’t looking at Jason, though. He seemed to be screaming something over his shoulder. That was weird.

He turned back to Jason. “Hey. Hey! Stay awake.” His voice was sharp and made Jason wince. It was also watery. He sniffed and quickly ran a gloved wrist over his eyes roughly before reaching down and shoving his hands over Jason’s. Hard. 

Jason screamed. It felt like something sharp was ripping through him. Something hot and wet ran through his clenched teeth. 

“Batman!” Robin screamed shrilly, and Jason winced again. He wasn’t sure if it was at the noise or his stomach now, though. It was burning and curdling and he kind of felt like he was going to throw up. He gagged anyway. More hot, coppery liquid came up. He spat it out on the ground. It made breathing burn. The effort of coughing tired him out. He slouched back against the tire. 

Something large and black cut into his vision. Then a face was lowering down, whiteout eyes suddenly changing to reveal human ones.

“Nightwing, call 911. Now.” He said to someone behind him, without looking away from Jason. Jason’s eyes sluggishly flitted over his shoulder to Nightwing, who was pressing a phone up against his ear. There were tears streaking down from his mask, too. 

Jason glanced up at the face hovering over him. Another set of hands pressed down on his side even harder. It only drew a half-wail from him that tapered into strangled sobs. 

“Shhhh.” Batman said. Jason had never heard that sound in a soft way before. It had always been sharp and commanding. It had always been a threat. 

Regardless, he couldn’t obey. The sobs turned into odd grunting sounds in his throat that seemed to keep happening no matter how much they irritated him and he tried to stop them. His shoulders twitched with them. His lips felt sticky and wouldn’t part for air. 

A gauntlet grasped his chin and gently turned his head to the side and tilted it down. Blood ran out of his mouth and dripped on his shirt. He wanted to cough and speed it up a bit, but he barely had energy to move his tongue. 

He was probably dying, he realized. Almost definitely. He knew his hands were completely covered in blood, and Batman’s and Robin’s were, too, and he could still feel more of it underneath, squishy and sticky. 

He hoped his mom was upstairs. He hoped she’d remembered to lock Dad out of whatever room she got into. Or had gone to a neighbor’s place, instead. He hoped she wouldn’t look for her pills and get mad that he hadn’t gotten them. 

He hoped...he hoped…

He tried to pull his hand out from under Batman and Robin’s. It took him a few tries, but he finally managed to slip it out.

“Jason, what are you—“ Robin was panicked.

“Lie still, Jason.” Batman said. 

Jason ignored them both and pawed in his pocket for his phone. His fingers were clumsy and he nearly dropped it as he was pulling it out. He flipped it open and tried to type the number, cursing under his breath as he left bloody smears on the screen. He had to use his thumb to punch in the numbers because apparently his other fingers weren’t tapping hard enough. 

He hit call and suddenly wondered why he’d tried. He couldn’t lift it to his ear. What was he going to say, anyway?  _ Thanks for offering? You seemed decent? Sorry I couldn’t get up the guts to call you? I wanted to but I was too scared and now it’s too late?  _

His feverish train of thoughts evaporated when a phone rang, right in front of him. 

He blinked thickly, confused. What…?

Batman’s eyes met his. The human eyes that had replaced the glowing white ones were sorrowful and steady. 

They were grey. 

Jason’s mouth dropped open, just a crack. 

He’d….he’d left his ringer on? As  _ Batman _ ? That could have easily gotten him killed in the gunfight. But he’d still left it on...just in case he’d called?

Jason’s eyes were already wet from pain, but now he was crying in earnest. No one had ever,  _ ever _ shown anywhere near that amount of kindness towards him. No one had ever stuck their neck out for him like that. Nothing he could possibly do would be worth a trade like that. Which meant it had been offered without expectation, and without demand. 

“I’m  _ sorry _ ,” he sobbed near-silently, pleading with the kindness in Batman’s— _ Bruce’s _ —eyes. “I—I  _ wanted— _ “

“It’s alright, Jason.” Bruce murmured, the words filtered by his helmet. Hesitantly, he reached a hand towards him. Jason resisted the urge to flinch, and Bruce gently brushed at his hair. “Just hang on.” 

For the first time in maybe his entire life, Jason wanted to.

Which was why he knew, even as he heard the words and slipped away anyway, that he wouldn’t be able to. 

___

 

The first thing Jason noticed was the smell. He hated the smell of hospitals. He’d been in them too many times, either with his mom or with a cop. It was only exacerbated by the stench of blood.

The next thing he noticed was the muted—but still intense—pain in his middle. He shifted slightly and nearly bit through his tongue. 

His right leg hadn’t moved at all. 

Fear already churning in his stomach, he tried to open his eyes. Even coming close enough to the surface to blink  _ hurt _ , and his lashes slammed shut again after barely opening to slits. He exhaled roughly, trying to ground himself somewhat in the pain. He shifted his hand up toward his face and tugged weakly at whatever was pinching in his nose.

“Hey,” someone said, and a hand laid carefully on his and lightly tugged it back down and laid it beside him again. It didn’t take much—he seemed to have no strength at all in his limbs, and all he could think once his hand was down again was how much moving hurt. 

Jason tried again to open his eyes, and after a few seconds of furious blinking and burning, his vision finally focused on a pillow and a length of tubing, and his own hand, lying beside him. His skin looked almost translucent. His veins looked black against it. 

A blurry shape leaned down a bit to be in his line of sight, and he squinted his already half-lidded eyes. A face came into focus slowly. He was fairly certain he had no idea who it was but they looked oddly familiar, nonetheless. The blue eyes with the dark circles beneath, which somehow didn’t take away from the overall youth and warmth that seemed to radiate from him. The messy, too-long black hair with the slight curl to it. The olive skin and the kind smile that was currently strained but still managed to make Jason feel just a bit lighter.

At that point he put two and two together. What was missing was a black domino mask. Nightwing. 

He didn’t look that old, really. He couldn’t be more than a few years older than Jason himself. And in a black t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts, he just looked like a regular kid. 

“Hmm,” Jason half-groaned. He couldn’t find the energy to say much more than that, and he didn’t know what he would say if he did.

Nightwing gave him another faint smile, lightly squeezed his limp wrist. “Hey. You alright?”

Jason let his eyes roll back into his head rather than replying, taking a deep breath which quickly stuttered when he remembered how much breathing hurt. 

In fact, everything hurt. How did he keep forgetting that?

“Did…” he rasped out. Even he could hardly hear himself. He tried to blink his eyes open again, to look at Nightwing while he talked, but he couldn’t quite manage it. “Did someone call my mom?”

There was a long pause. “Yeah,” Nightwing finally said, his voice pained. “...Jason, I don’t think she’s coming.” 

“Oh.” Jason said. He lay there, boneless in the gurney. He couldn’t move if the world fell apart around him. Which it already had. 

___

 

“I’m sorry, baby.” Mom sobbed over the phone, when he was awake enough that they decided he could handle it.

“Mom—“ Jason said, tried to say. She sobbed again and cut him off. “I didn’t want to, I  _ tried _ to—to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He...he said this was our chance to start over without...without any  _ distractions _ .” Catherine broke into renewed sobs. “He made me pack everything in trash bags and, and—“

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Jason knew. They’d emptied the apartment and left. They were probably on the subway or in a shitty car by now, headed who knew where. Anywhere, so long as it was away from Jason. 

Mom just cried over the phone. Jason wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t have the strength and he wanted to save it for the important question. “Mom.” He rasped. 

She tried to catch her breath, compose herself a bit. “Yes?”

“What if.” Jason worried his tongue between his teeth. “What if I knew a way you could leave? If—if I said I knew someone who could get you out. Away from Dad.”

Catherine’s breath buzzed across the line. “Oh, baby,” she whispered. “Oh, baby, you’re very sweet, but...but you know I can’t. I can’t just leave him. I...he  _ needs _ me, you know? He’s bad enough with me. He needs me around to make sure he stays out of trouble. I don’t want to, baby, but I have to. You know that?”

“Yeah,” Jason whispered. The word felt like it took all the breath he had left and all the air he would ever have. 

“I’ll. I’ll come see you soon, baby. I promise.” A pause. Static buzzing. “I love you, baby.”

Jason didn’t have the strength to say “I love you, too.”

___

They gave him the talk later. He guessed it made sense. If he hadn’t spontaneously died during that phone conversation, he wasn’t likely to suddenly code in the midst of the next shitty one.

They cleared the room of everyone but Bruce and the doctor. Probably figuring Bruce was a reassuring figure as well as the only legal adult around at the moment. Jason would have preferred they’d left Nightwing and Robin in.

The doctor didn’t waste time or mince words. Jason didn’t follow everything he was saying—the drugs didn’t help, and  _ oh _ did he  _ hate that _ —but he got the gist. He understood with perfect clarity that he was going to be trapped in the hospital for at least four weeks, still receiving blood transfusions for the next solid week, and would never regain use of his right leg. By the end of the whole spiel, when the doctor momentarily became human and looked at him with a concerned expression, Jason wished his bed would swallow him whole. He couldn’t meet the doctor’s eyes or Bruce’s. 

“I understand,” he exhaled, when they asked him if he’d gotten it. He understood he was as good as dead, if he hadn’t been already.

The doctor left then. He was hoping Bruce would leave. He didn’t.

Jason turned his face away and cried silently until he fell asleep. 

___

The next time he came around after the phone call, there was an odd-looking old guy in an actual fucking suit sitting in the chair beside his bed.

“Who the fuck are you.” Jason wheezed out, his eyes falling shut again. 

“First of all, I will forgive the state of your tongue due to your current condition. I myself am fully aware of the destructive power of gunshot wounds on one’s sense of propriety. Second of all, I am Mr. Alfred Pennyworth, personal manservant to Mr. Wayne. He has instructed me to keep you company while he and the young Masters are occupied with...other matters.” The old man sounded completely nonplussed. Jason could imagine him knitting while he talked. He had no idea what he was  _ actually _ doing, and wasn’t about to open his eyes to see. 

“And, as he has told me, you are Mr. Jason Todd. And a resourceful and heroic young man.” 

Jason scoffed very slightly. It hurt enough that he instantly regretted it. 

___

 

The next time Nightwing and Robin were there when he woke up, Jason was, unfortunately, quite a bit more coherent, and thus in quite a bit more pain. Out of a desperate desire to be distracted, he squinted one eye open and half-glared at the two, who froze over their card game at the tiny hospital table, and then shut his eye again. “So, your real names are?” He croaked out.

A pause. Robin was the first to quietly peep up, “I’m Tim.” 

“Tim, Jason. You already knew that.” Jason croaked. He blinked his eyes back open blearily and looked at Nightwing. “And you?”

The older boy slowly developed a shit-eating grin. “Dick.”

Jason blinked. “Seriously.”

“Yep.” He emphasized the popping sound at the end.

“Huh.” Jason said. “So your full name is—?”

“—Richard,” he confirmed with a nod.

“And you go by Dick, willingly.”

“Yep.”

“Huh.” Jason said again. “Oookay. I’m not responsible for any puns, then.”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t be the first to come up with them,” Dick said good-naturedly, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head in the chair.

“So you guys are Bruce Wayne’s...what, exactly?” Jason asked with his eyes closed. Chatting was wearing him out, but it was better than sleeping again.

“Adopted sons,” Tim replied, sounding a little warmed at the fact. 

“Wait, you guys are—“ 

“Orphans.” Dick finished. “My parents died when I was eight and his only a couple years ago.”

“Shit, man.” Jason croaked, cracking his eyes open to glance at Tim. “You’re what, twelve?”

“Eleven,” Tim admitted quietly, staring at the floor. 

“What the fu—“ Jason slumped back. “This is ridiculous.”

“It is.” Dick agreed. 

“Does he…” Jason shrugged as much as he was able. It was really no more than cupping his hands at his sides. “Does he do that sort of thing? Often?”

“What, adopt kids?” Tim asked, confused.

“He’s done it twice now,” Dick said wryly. Tim yelped softly as Dick elbowed him gently. “I bet he’ll do more if he ever decides on it. Bruce can be stubborn when he’s got his heart set on something.” 

“Hmm,” Jason said, wondering.

___

He was still sleeping a ridiculous amount of his day when he woke up again several days after the shooting. Bruce was sitting in the chair beside his bed, reading a book. Jason pushed himself up a bit on shaky arms and glanced around sleepily. No one else was there. 

Bruce glanced up at him with an unreadable expression when he heard him stirring, and lightly shut the book. “Hello, Jason.” He said.

“Hey.” Jason grunted, slumping back down and scrubbing at his eyes with one fist. “What day is it?” 

“Friday,” Bruce said, folding his hands on his knee.

“Hmmm. Whatcha reading?”

“Reading? Oh,” Bruce glanced down at the book on his thigh, “Robin Hood. Tim was—“

“—Reading it the other day,” Jason huffed. When Bruce eyed him curiously, he rolled his eyes. “Yeah. He said.” 

“...Yes. About that,” Bruce said, and Jason wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he should pay attention. “They, um. You all seem to get along well.”

Jason shrugged softly. “I guess. They’re good kids.”

Bruce snorted quietly. “You sound like you’re eighty.”

“I feel eighty,” Jason said emptily, staring at his thin hands and the tubes and wires running from them. 

There was a long pause. Then Bruce, sounding hoarse, said, “I’m very sorry this happened to you, Jason. You didn’t deserve this.”

Jason gave an empty laugh. “Life would say otherwise.” He muttered.

“No.” Bruce said, leaning forward. “No one deserves even half of what you’ve had to live with, Jason. You deserve better. And I…”

Jason stared at Bruce as he fumbled for words. “The boys...the boys like you, I think. I know. They’d never forgive me if I just left you to foster care, and I’d never forgive myself. I...I don’t know how it would work, or how you’d want it to work, or if you’d even want to at all, let alone so soon after...but at the very  _ least _ , I—I want to offer that you come to my house when you get released from the hospital. At least while you’re recovering. The boys are there, and Alfred’s there. Your mother could come and visit if she wants, and we can keep your dad away if need be. I work sometimes, but I’ll be there when I can be...if you want me around, that is.” 

Jason was silent.

Bruce met his gaze. His grey eyes were earnest. “I know it won’t replace what you lost, Jason, but I would like to help you. But only if you want it.” 

Jason held Bruce’s gaze for a moment, then dropped his eyes to his pale hands and his useless leg. On his own, he wouldn’t make it. Right now, at least. Maybe, given some time, he could figure out a way to function again. 

Or maybe he might not have to do everything for himself anymore.

His brain warred with itself. All he could think about, in endless circles of terror, was how this was going to fall apart. Either they would fuck him over or he would fuck things up. Even if it was good, it would never  _ stay _ good. Nothing ever did. He was stupid to think anything different could ever happen to him. 

But what choice did he have?

And moreover, was he really going to throw a wrench in it before he’d even given it a chance? Given  _ them _ a chance? 

“I’d…” Jason swallowed dryly, forcing past the near-paralysis of his tongue. “I’d like that. I think.” 

Bruce smiled. “That’s good.”

After a moment, Jason hesitantly smiled back. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’m on tumblr: autumnhobbit.tumblr.com


End file.
